Ontario Premier Doug Ford wants to ensure “dirt is flying” on infrastructure projects throughout the province.
At the 130th edition of the Good Roads Conference, held in Toronto from April 21 to 24, Ford outlined how his government is working to expedite construction projects.
“We have to see dirt flying. That’s my favourite saying. When dirt is flying, things are getting done,” Ford said. “We’re not only building roads — we’re building and doing everything that we can do to build roads faster.”
Ontario is investing more than $100 billion on transportation infrastructure in 10 years, including about $20 billion to build, renew or expand roads, bridges and highways across the province.
“There’s no jurisdiction in all North America that’s investing over $100 billion in infrastructure,” Ford said.
These infrastructure projects include the Bradford Bypass, the twinning of Highway 17, building the road to the Ring of Fire, numerous interchanges and road upgrades province wide.
“And I’m just so excited to say, we’re finally going to get shovels in the ground — within the next year — to build Highway 413,” Ford said.
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To tackle multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects, Ontario is using a progressive procurement strategy to expediate the building process, as well as enable more companies to bid and help build.
“Very few companies can handle it all at once at the speed we want to get going. So, we’re going to split those projects up,” Ford said. “And this new approach is helping you move some of the biggest projects, projects that otherwise might not get built.”
Earlier this year, the provincial government also announced changes to environmental assessments, to streamline and simplify the process. According to Ford, the changes could remove up to four years from the building process for road and highway construction projects, while maintaining environmental safeguards.
“We can expedite projects that have the least environmental impact,” the Premier said. “This new process is a massive, massive improvement.”
The province is also incorporating lean methodologies to streamline government. The province created a team that visits every ministry to help find efficiencies. The strategy has saved more than 900,000 working hours to date.
“Those are pretty staggering figures,” he said.
To help cut more red tape at the provincial level, Ford asked attendees at the Good Roads Conference to point out areas where efficiencies may be found.
“Feed us information. Say, ‘there’s a duplication here, there’s red tape or there’s regulations.’ Let’s get rid of it,” the Premier said. “Nothing drives me more crazy than if you want to move forward and there’s just layers and layers of red tape and bureaucracy.”
